“I was always a wild kid,” he says about the six years he spent through 10th grade riding buses two hours each way to Hingham schools. “A lot of other kids in Metco would come home and have to be inside when the street lights came on — that wasn’t me. My mom was out a lot working and doing gang-peace work — I was witnessing shootouts and having gang bangs in my bedroom.”

In 2002, Amadeus was diagnosed with schizophrenia — a disorder that drives much of his creativity, and that has gotten him institutionalized more than once. Only recently did he find an effective medical regimen. Between unsupportive associates, who insisted that he had nothing to worry about, and the pocket full of blow and dough from his day job, he often abandoned his anti-psychotic diet, self-medicating with fistfuls of painkillers and more than three grams of coke a day. It’s a cliché for artists to claim they rhyme for catharsis, but in his case it makes some sense.

“People should try exposing themselves to the world — and standing naked on this filthy place that we call Earth. I come from the same place you come from. It’s all about knowing who you are. When I was writing this album, I was disgusted with myself, not just because of the way I was living, but because I just had a son and a girl and a nice place and I was still caught up. House of Broken Mirrors is all about smashing that negative image.”

Review: Verbal Kent | Save Yourself Whether you adore Kanye West or want to scalp him with a rusty spoon, there's no denying that, for those of us out on the coasts, he overshadows the rest of Chi-Town's rap scene.

B. Dolan goes where few MCs have gone before B. Dolan is like Joaquin Phoenix with no safety net and a whole lot more back hair. Unlike Phoenix in last year's faux meta-mockumentary I'm Not Here , the Providence native doesn't shock people for no good reason.

Who's Cam Groves? Back in the day, Preposterously Dank, the hip-hop label/collective created by Spose and featuring Cam Groves, Dr. Astronaut, and Educated Advocates, would have hit the popular consciousness with a collective album first.

Jeff the Brotherhood bring the DIY "If I hadn't witnessed Jeff the Brotherhood, there would be no Skimask," Skimask singer Andy Brown told me after an Allston basement show last month.

CZARFACE SOARS ABOVE THE CLOUDS | February 11, 2013 This week 7LES and Inspectah Deck drop Czarface , a full-length work of adventurous genius revolving around a metal-clad protagonist who feeds on destruction.

THE BPD ADDS INSULT TO INJURY | February 05, 2013 At times, this kind of decision makes you wonder whether the BPD is saving its best awards for officers who've been involved in the death of civilians.